Cody clarifies his ‘focus group’ comment after being ridiculed by WWE fans

Earlier this week, while doing the media rounds to promote AEW’s Double or Nothing pay-per-view coming up on May 30, Cody Rhodes said that his contentious American Dream promo from Dynamite was tested in a ‘full focus group.’ The notion that Cody passes his promos through a focus group seemed hard to believe.

It turns out that Cody received a lot of flak for using that term. Presumably angry fans of Roman Reigns and Sasha Banks were especially eager to let him know about it on Twitter, as Cody explained while clarifying that his promo was not actually tested in a focus group:

“I’m gonna chalk this up to me not knowing what the term ‘focus group’ means, because I woke up this morning to a very large amount of people in my mentions, almost all of them with a Roman [Reigns] or a Sasha Banks avatar, making fun of me for using the term ‘focus grouped.’

I did not focus group this promo. What I intended to say, and I did not say correctly, so chalk this up to me being a dummy, I work on my promos very hard. And a lot of the old-timers who said, ‘Oh I was just doing it on the fly.’ I would say they worked on theirs very hard, whether it be in the gym, whether it be in the car, looking in the rear-view.

So when it comes to my promos, the process is usually I voice memo it out to the people I trust the most, the legends in our industry, some coaches, and some members of management, and I like to see what they think. But absolutely not, there is no AEW focus group that is listening to my interviews.”

“I would just chalk up my passion and love for promos...I got to see a really great working relationship first-hand between Brian Gewirtz and The Rock. And I know that’s an incredibly lofty comparison, but it’s one to shoot for because him being such an exceptional entertainer and promo. So I like to take mine very seriously. I like to be all business about them...I just want to continue to deliver really good content whenever I put the mic to my lips.”

So there you have it, Cagesiders. There is no AEW focus group scrutinizing Cody’s every word. He simply used the wrong word when discussing his American Dream promo. He may have also used some of the wrong words during the actual promo, but that’s a story for another day.

What do you think about Cody’s clarification about AEW focus groups?